EWJ June 2024 web - Journal - Page 88
Corporate Fraud.
Any ‘Collar’ You Like!
by Ian Ross
A case for asserting that the term ‘white-collar crime’ is out of date and confusing for executives,
lawyers, and managers.
emphasised intellect and business opportunity aligning with the corporate position of the offender. The
best explanation to remedy the confusion is that scholars have claimed that Sutherland’s work around the
white-collar crime concept as ‘top-down’ or position
orientated has been commandeered by corporates or
misguided members of the judiciary who have caused
conflation of fraud typologies. That fraud offenders
of a certain corporate standing should – and do get,
preferential treatment. Evidence of this exists by way
of the Post Office scandal, with blatant criminality in
the Post Office scandal with the Post Office Executive
and it’s lawyers committing prima-facie offences of
perjury and perverting the course of justice. Yet law
enforcement and other regulatory authorities have
done nothing, and made clear they will not do so, certainly not in the near term.
Fraud: we have ‘white collar’ ‘red collar’ ‘pink collar’
...whatever next? ‘Tartan' collar? Outdated and unnecessary criminal labels appeal to a certain audience,
and for conventional reasons the 'white' label collar
hangs on to buzzword popularity. But the fraud management world is awakening; not because fraud is becoming more ‘sophisticated’ as we keep hearing. It is
due to the welcomed dismantling of long held assumptions based on ‘office’ and socio-political stereotyping, telling us that a fraudster in a corporate setting
is identified simply by ‘corporate class’ or position, or
even gender. Little is included about fresh thinking
about behavioural traits and those outcomes.
The Origins
Edward Sutherland pitched the term “white-collar
crime” during a lecture in 1939 (Sutherland, 1940) to
focus on the assertion that members of ‘privileged’ socioeconomic classes also commit crime. Since then,
researchers have constantly discussed what might be
included in and what might be excluded from this
concept.
More pertinently, is legislation such as Deferred Prosecution Agreements (‘DPAs’). Fines and certain ‘corrective measures’ are imposed but which do not
address individuals and are arguably tantamount to
making deals with criminals at senior levels. Massive
fraud and corruption effectively goes unpunished.
One regulator claimed that DPAs are a ‘gateway to rehabilitation’ when in all truth DPA’s are arguably a
charter for the corrupt.
A Victim of His Own Success?
It would be remiss to criticise Sutherland’s work as his
term rightly widened fraud offender typology from a
societal class of offender to that of status or ‘rank’ and
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
86
JUNE 2024